Tea for Three
Just another day in 'paradise', in the Delgard household. The temporary housing unit the Delgard women have been given, on base property, is plenty adequate. Utilitarian, really. There's a triple security system on the door, but it seems to fail at keeping out anyone with appropriate clearance and bypass cards. Inside that door is a clean, spartan apartment. It enters into the main living area - a realm of soft, grayish blue walls and flooring, furnished with crisp, white dining set and a couch. Perhaps not the choice of families with messy children, but the furnishings were included, and homeless beggars cannot be choosers. The living area connects seamlessly with a small kitchen - outfitted with fairly new appliances of mismatched alloys. Around the corner from the kitchen and down a short hallway from the living quarters are two bedrooms and a three-piece fresher unit. A few, small purchases to personalize the space add pops of color - pillows on the sofa, some petty knick-knacks for the counter top, and a little, succulent plant to brighten the tabletop with bursts of stringy, orange blooms. One such person with the appropriate clearances was Rasi, though at least he chimed and waited to be let in before barging into the residence the ambassador had been given. A few words are exchanged with the guard posted at the entrance, an update of sorts, though in truth there was little he didn't know already. When he's let in, Rasi walks in slowly, looking about with mild interest before finally he speaks, "Ambassador, I just thought to drop by and ask how you were doing and how you're settling in to your new house." Ambrosia offers a civil smile, moving around her new guest to bypass her former seat at the table and head for the kitchen. "We're getting along just fine," she answers politely, and gestures with a bandaged left hand to a stark, white kettle poised at the ready on the cook station. "Care for some tea? I was getting thirsty, anyway." Lying across her abandoned post are some scattered bits of what look to be droid tech and couple little tinkering tools. Part of a skeletal hand frame has already been assembled. "Can I have some?" Calls a familiar, girlish voice from down the hall. She doesn't emerge from her sanctuary, though. "I would appreciate it, thank you.", he says before taking a seat at the table that Ambrosia left just moments past, the top button of his collar was opened once he sat down to make it slightly more comfortable. The bits and pieces of tech scattered on the table's surface are looked at, a hand reaching out to grab one of them and bring it closer to his face before finally he puts it down. "I was not aware that you were a technician as well, is it a hobby only or was that your calling prior to becoming a diplomat?" "I suppose you could call it a former profession," Ambrosia replies, dryly. She fills the kettle one-handedly and flips the switch to set in boiling within seconds. Quick, efficient - the military way! After dropping some herbal packets into a trio of thick, earthenware cups, she pours carefully over the tops. "Turned into an infrequent hobby. C4 - my endearingly dysfunctional P.O.S. protocol unit who more or less ran my desk on Caspar, in my absence, took a couple years to complete, in my spare time. Was almost sad to see her blown apart with the rest of the place. Now that she's gone, though, I'm not entirely sure I want another one." "We can furnish you with another protocol droid should you ever desire it.", of course, that just misses the entire point of what the Ambassador said. Rasi stands up, joining the woman in the kitchen, "Please let me help carry this, your doctors recommended that you shouldn't strain yourself.", though likely they didn't have carrying tea cups in mind when t hey said that. "Incidentally, I listened to the recordings from your last debriefing session. It was an interesting...listen as you can imagine. We will have to make sure that future sessions don't get as upsetting as that last one, if only to make sure your recovery isn't harmed." Gabi appears rather suddenly in the archway between living and sleeping areas. Watching in silence as the tea prepping gets wrapped up, she leans a shoulder against the wall. There's a noticeable difference in the girl's demeanor, from their last encounter, months ago. Gone is the vibrant, wildling of a child. In its place haunts an expression too old to belong to a recently-turned-eleven girl. Her curls, however, don't seem to have been tamed by the harrowing experience, and are just as unruly as before. In her hands are two things - a very sophisticated Y-wing model and a very life-like Lord Aldus Thell action figure - complete with cape and styled hair. "If our intelligence Agency would be so kind as to answer /my/ questions, then then the future sessions won't be so upsetting." Arching a brow pointedly, she permits his assistance without complaint, choosing to take just one cup in her right hand, to deliver to the phantomesque child skulking in the hallway. "Gabi, won't you say hello to Captain Cen?" she prompts. A smile, a small one, was accorded the child when she appeared, "I have something for you, Gabrielle.", though just what it is waits until Rasi puts down the two cups back at the table before returning towards Ambrosia and her child's side. From his jacket he pulls a small box, not wrapped but it was clear enough that it was a gift, and within is the latest toy - his adjutant having confirmed that it was the rage this past holiday season. "I hope you do not mind.", he says to Ambrosia, "I was told that a toy might just work in helping her.", forget what happened over the last few weeks, but then that didn't need to be said, at least not in front of the child. Gabi looks to the items in her hands, then the offered box, and at last the face of the man presenting it to her. Her cheeks crease with a soft smile and she nods, crouching to carefully set the Y-wing to the floor and thrusts mini Thel at her mother for the taking. After a subtle nod of approval to Rasi, Ambrosia takes the little persecutor in her left hand and offers tea with the right. She squints to examine something on its chest. The ceremonial breast plate is disfigured. A small, melted looking patch. She chuckles. "Well done...I see your aim has steadied." A flash of happy flits through Gabi's eyes as she glances to the lasered Thel before investigating the contents of the gift box. "It has," she confirms, reaching with her non tea hand to pull some plastic-wrapped thing out of its packaging. Very methodical, this girl. Not the box-shredding, paper-tossing type. But once she sees the contents, a glimmer of her old self emerges and she beams a grin of gratitude to the Naval Captain before waving it in Ambrosia's face. "It's the new A-Wing series! Like Leo pilots!!! Mom, can you rig this one with a laser, too? I bet it'll shoot even better!" It said something about the age they lived in that many popular toys were based on instruments of war, but that was for philosophers to ponder over and Rasi was most certainly not one. "If you're interested in things of this sort, I will have a sim program sent to her, it's little more than a game, but it does have similarities with some of the programs we use to train gunners for the fleet." The fact that Gabi seemed to be playing with a live fire laser, if a very weak one, didn't bring a reaction in the man, at least not a negative one. Ambrosia smiles thinly, choosing to avoid direct eye contact with the Captain while her daughter divulges her homemade, toy modifications. Kid's gotta learn to shoot sometime, right? Still, her ears so seem a bit pinker than they were seconds prior. "Wow!" she feigns her enthusiasm as all good parents do and bends at the waist a bit to give the model a cursory examination. "Yes, I think I can work with this. Why don't you go see what features it possess already, though, so we know what /not/ to touch." "Thank you!" Gabi blurts, to both adults, before siezing the man in a brief hug. Then, she's off, racing the few steps to her room and sloshing a bit of tea with each one. Ambrosia sighs, looking to the partially blasted Thel. "A sim program would be wonderful. I had an older version built into a scrapped nav console in her old room. I'm sure she misses it. Looks like /your/ days are numbered, my friend," she adds as an aside to the doll. The grimace that appeared on his face at the hug didn't come close to expressing his true level of discomfort, but at least Gabi was quick about it, and as soon as she lets go, Rasi straightens his jacket, running his hands over it before he turns back and walks to the table, though only if Ambrosia accompanies him. "Then I will make sure to send it right away. "You said you had questions that our intel people have not answered as yet?" "Yes," Ambrosia answers, tone darkening a touch as they return to the table and awaiting tea cups. She pulls her chair out and sits. Picking up the articulate appendage frame with her right hand, she lays it atop her left forearm and wrist, gauging the would-be fit. "What do you know about the allegedly 'tainted' shipment of humanitarian goods to Caspar, courtesy of the Empire?" It's not a casual question, but it is spoken in a casual tone, and she offers just a glance of eye contact before eyeballing the tech some more. Stiffly, she extends her lefthanded fingers until they are as flat as they can be, with assistance from her right ones. The faint tremoring never ceases. "The one that was stuffed with weapons and spying devices?", Rasi asks. After having sat down, the man straight-backed as ever, he reaches out and grabs his tea, cupping it gently in the palms of both his hands, a slight shiver going through his hands as they warm up rapidly. He raises his to his lips, blowing on the cup's lid before taking a hesitant sip. "I know that it had weapons and various such things and that it was very likely not the only such Imperial shipment to have it." "Yes, yes. I saw the vid recorded of the Caspians opening it. The Minister was very thorough in her unveiling of the 'evidence' to Lord Thel, at our little pow wow, some weeks before /our/ embassy exploded. What I mean is, how did those things come to be smuggled in with the shipment?" Arching a skeptical brow Rasi's way, she removes the skeletal frame from her arm and picks up a tiny, metal rivet. It gets popped into place, securing a piece of framing for the distal end of what would be the 'thumb' digit. Another sip of his tea, then another and finally he puts down the cup, "Quite good, you will have to tell me what brew it is and where you get it before I leave.", and with that out of the way, Rasi focuses his gaze back on the ambassador, observing in silence that nearly becomes awkward given how long it holds before he speaks up again. "Why do you wish to know, Ambassador?" Ambrosia toys with her new thumb-to-be, flexing it, then puts it down in favor of a tea sip. Yes, it probably is good! She can smell it well enough. "Camby berry, blended with...something I can't pronounce. Found it on a dusty shelf in the commissary." Tea cup returns to the table top. Shoving a finger through the little pile of odds'n'ends, she turns up another rivet. "The expression on Aldus' face, while genuinely priceless, wasn't of a guilty man. It was of a man who'd been had." A smirk. "And so," she explains with an unnaturally amiable tone while resuming the attachment of the index finger, "I'd like to know who is due the credit, for throwing an indubitably lousy wrench into my political assignment. Who ought I thank, for the precise backlash of violence, abduction, and consequential murder - of myself and my marines? Gabi herself was nearly a sacrificial lamb. I just want to know whose sins I died for. I believe my therapist would call it 'receiving the gift of closure', though admittedly, it may well just be the opening of a new door." "The backlash of violence...", he repeats before his voice trails off, his brows furrow before he continues, "Ambassador, is there anyone to blame for this entire series of events, from the very fact that there is war on Caspar in the first place all the way to us having lost soldiers fighting in that war, other than the very people who started that war? Other than the Empire? After all, do you think that was the only shipment of weapons and saboteurs that was smuggled in with those Imperial supplies or merely that that was the only one that had been caught? And if so, does it matter how the Caspians came to catch that shipment?" "It does," Ambrosia nods slowly, bending little cap-like tips onto the end of the newly attached digits. "It's true, the Empire may have grown impatient with the dithering nature of our presence on world long enough to give our relations a shove in the direction beneficial to them, but..." Poking her index fingertip into the cap to mold a better fit, she shrugs. "At least we wouldn't have been at risk of appearing guilty of falsehoods and manipulation in the Caspians' eyes. Sabotage paints an ugly picture, not a pretty one." Her thumb follows suit, fitting into its proper place before she aligns the rest of the mechanism a second time. *Wiggle*wiggle* go the braced fingers while her right hand secures the forearm into position. "The Empire started this new war for Caspia, and the saboteurs - if they do exist within our ranks, of course - have damaged our long-standing record of transparent trust and fair play with the CDU. I stood, stand accused of something /I/ did not do...nor endorsed...but the resulting tain of our reputation remains very real. If what I suspect is true, the Empire was given a gift that day, of /real/ leverage against us. Quite the step up from petty lies and twisted truths." Good enough. Freeing her hand of the contraption once more, she reaches a second time for her tea and finally lifts her eyes from her work. "I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think we stand a chance at salvaging CDU-NR relations enough to facilitate trade after this war is over. Not if they view us as more trouble than we're worth." "The Caspians know the truth, we do not have soldiers on their world and we are not the ones that have thrust them into the abyss. Everything else is really beside the point and I think you are being far too pessimistic. If things work out for once, then proper relations will be resumed, especially since we put Republican lives on the line to free them." At last Rasi returns to his tea, a longer sip of it taken, the cup half-emptied when he places it back down. "And if things do not work out then we will have far bigger problems to worry about than trad relations. Rest assured that you are and will always be on the only side committed to justice and freedom. If your belief in this ever wavers I can forward you the latest reports of some of the things being done on worlds held by the Empire. In any case.", that last added after a moment's silence, time given to the woman to process his words, "what is that?", the that in question being the contraption she's assembling. "I'm not pessimistic," Ambrosia argues quietly and turns the 'contraption' over. "I've simply born witness to how lowly the Ministry bends beneath the opinions of its people - a good democracy - and the people, many but not all, have been easily fooled. This 'viper' made for an easy whipping girl, and she is quite justified in her ire, having taken those lashes. Poked, harassed, made to look the fool. You'd best not reinstate me, /if/ this conflict resolves for our better. I just may bite someone." The words are spoken in all seriousness, a look of warning in her eye, then she lifts the object in question. "This is what's going to give me better use of my left hand. Steady my aim, prevent future casualties of dishware, and diminish resemblance between me and a spice junky, hungry for her fix. It would seem brain damage is a bitch, no matter how mild. And, speaking of such...another item I'd like Intel to enlighten, is just when will they finish with Dr. Kovani and release her for more casual observation?" A mental note was made to speak to the ambassador's counselor, perhaps even request that the number of sessions be increased, but that was neither here or now. "Would it not be better to have the hospital craft one up for you? It ought to be better than a do-it yourself job, or at least more reliable." After he picked up his tea, he quaffed down what was left in the cup in one go now that it had cooled down enough to not burn his tongue should he swallow too quickly. "Speaking of, what you mentioned about her is quite...curious but I would like to hear more about her directly from you." "Nothin like a personal touch," Ambrosia muses, putting the brace back onto the pile of spare parts and leaning back a few degrees in her seat, both hands on the tabletop. "It'll clean up nicely. Unlike, I suspect, all my skeletons the trickster Lord Thel has risen from the dead." A wan smile touches her features and she stares past Rasi, towards the door. When she speaks again, it's quiet, soft, too hushed to be heard from the other side of the apartment, where the occasional bang suggests Gabi is testing the limits of her new toy. "It began with Kovani...Liora. That's what they named her. No surprise, she didn't take her mother's surname. Or her father's." One of those bangs causes Rasi to turn his head, towards where the child was playing, concerned perhaps that she had injured herself but after a moment he looks back at Ambrosia. "How did this Kovani come to find you or be in your presence and how did you know that she was your daughter? And who is her father?" His voice too was lowered to match the "After several sessions involving the Bravo Six truth serum and something else, something...OV...string of numbers...hell of a hallucinogen," Ambrosia sighs, "Thel realized that this little 'rebel spy' was in fact, quite truthful and void of much information. I was confident that he hadn't captured Gabi yet, so there was zero leverage he could possibly use against me to get his way. If I didn't do as he asked, the worst /he/ could do was kill me. They'd already done that once and the thought of an encore performance didn't seem all that bad, really." Pausing for a little sip of tea, she shrugs. "Then he showed me his data pad - the report on screen was a DNA match. Mine...against someone in their system. Active duty personnel. A woman - the doctor who had patched up their handiwork - whose photo looked vaguely familiar. She has my lips...his nose...but seems to have struck out on the height gene from either of us. At least, the little memory I have left of Moff Tyruni seems to place him as a fairly tall man." Lofting her brows in mimicry of surprise, belied by her smirk, she takes another hit of tea, then stands to get herself a refill. "How did she come to be an Imperial agent?", his next question comes shortly after hers, and by the time he is done, he is sitting forward, the teacup having been pushed aside so that he could clasp his hands together on the table's surface. "And Moff Tyrani?" Perhaps he already knew all of this and just wanted to hear it from the woman herself or perhaps he hadn't gone through her files diligently. A mild snort punctuates Ambrosia's re entry of the kitchen. The tea's aroma steams upwards from her pour. "By Kovani's 'memory', she is a twenty-seven year old woman, orphaned and housed and schooled and sent to fancy medical training in the Imperial Navy...which of course is a load of bunk, programmed into her brain at whatever age they decided to...Except for the fancy medical training, I suppose. She really is quite good. Much smarter than /I/ was at nineteen..." Muttering something under her breath, she returns to the table. "When the 'powers that be' discovered one of their class A 'entertainers' was carrying Tyruni's bastard, it was only because I'd grown too fat to blame the weight gain on fancy wines and treats. The man was furious. Not as furious as his wife would've been, I imagine, if rumor spread that Tyruni's high-born seed had been wasted on a slave girl..." Making a soft, tsking sound, Ambrosia sits and blows across the tea's surface. "So they took it from me for disposal and then punished me. I suppose someone either mixed up the order or had a sense of compassion and saved the baby. We tried to locate Tyruni's file via databank terminal in our stateroom suite - Kovani and I - but he's evidently one of a thousand or more with the surname. Before we could narrow by approximate age, etc, the Nemesis locked us out." She shrugs. "Just as well. He's naught but a ghost in my memory. Let him stay buried there, where he can't do any more harm." "But how did your two paths actually encounter? How did your captor, this Lord Thel, know to show that report with the dna match and so on? The galaxy is not that small a place, did it trip some sort of personnel recognition database when you were first processed after they captured you?" That was the professional question to ask, but there was also his personal curiosity, and Rasi had to satisfy that as well. "And how did you go from being an Imperial slave to where you are now?" "When prisoners are processed, their DNA is automatically filed on record. Mine signaled a hit, apparently. He followed it, found his leverage. I called his bluff. They marched Liora into the interrogation chamber, put her on her knees and a blaster to her skull. I took one look at her and I knew. Thel won his confession. Game over." Ambrosia tosses back the entire cup of tea, wishing the contents were of a more potent nature. Lips curling with a bitter taste, perhaps not from the tea, she sneers. "How does a stupid, teenage girl transform from Imperial whore to a diplomat employed by the New Republic, you mean?" Glancing towards the hall to ensure that a Gabi is not lurking again, she sighs. "After that little transport shuttle took off, I got out of my seat restraint and started to trash the place. Details are fuzzy, post-partum hormonal rampage and all that. Must've delivered a hit to the nav system, because we went /down/. Jumped far off course, some backwater piece of ... planet. I didn't die, so when a band of 'free merchants' deviated from their routine stop to investigate the ship's distress signal, they picked me up. Spent a couple years traveling with them, doing odd jobs." She drums her good fingers over the prototype scattered before her. "Wanted to meet up with this 'rebellion' I'd heard high command whine about during so many meetings. John Lage - the captain of this merc ship - he obliged. I'm a quick study, so didn't take long to blend in. Caspar's current emissary from the Republic - Ambassador Dean Corso, rest his soul, was in need of a secretary. /I/ obliged. His assassination became my promotion, as I suppose our government was too busy to be bothered with our tiny presence there. The rest is history." A wink. The new stream of information is taken in, Rasi tilts his head down, looking down at the table and occasionally nodding his head as if he were reading it all from a datapad. "And why did she help you? After all, who are you to her other than some stranger who is apparently her biological mother? I do not doubt that you are her mother, dna doesn't lie, but I am not sure that I understand her reasoning in leaving behind all that she knew. Having a blaster pointed at you by your own people might do it...might." Ambrosia smirks. "Yes, betrayal can be very motivational. But you'll have to ask her that question. All Dr. Kovani did was give me the comlink I used to send the SOS. After I'd answered all her questions pertaining to her identity, mine, and what my intentions were concerning my own future, I asked her that -if- my 'friends' manage to free me from our lavish prison, that she come with me. What did she have left there, after all? She experienced first-hand how quickly the Empire will dismiss and expend its own loyal followers. Why stay in bed with the enemy when you can make a life for yourself elsewhere? I didn't ask her to buy into our cause...simply abandon theirs. She can make her own choices, when she's ready. There are plenty of refugee camps in need of medical personnel. She need never lay a doctoring hand on one of her former enemy fighters - us - if she doesn't care to. But civilian medicine - plenty of opportunity there." "And what are your intentions with her, are you satisfied now that she's free of the Empire or do you want more with her, of her?" Proof if any was needed that Rasi neither had children nor was particularly suited to them, that he might not understand or at least care to articulate that a mother would want a real relation with a child. "Will you also encourage her to tell us as much as she knows, I'm certain there's info she has that we might use." "She knows to be cooperative. It was only a couple months ago, after all, that she was lecturing me - her semi-conscious patient - to do the same thing; Save myself the trouble." A crooked grin begins to take shape, warping Ambrosia's solemn expression. "The girl is as stubborn as her mother though, I'm afraid. I don't recommend pushing her too hard. Difficult to convert an Imperial, if you treat them like one." "I found where we can install the laser blast, Mother!" Gabi calls, choosing that moment to thunder breathlessly down the short hall and into the living space. She holds the A-Wing aloft, pointing with a finger to a portion of the toy's exposed innards. Ambrosia winces inwardly with regret, rising slowly from her seat to placate the enthusiastic child with a quick examination of where Gabi indicates. "Maybe," she says, and points back to the archway. "Go put it on my bed and find the other tool kit. I think it's still in the fresher." "I will leave that to the people who know how to deal with it best but other than that, I think that's...", of course, that's when Gabi decides to come running in and so Rasi rises as his host does. "I'll make sure to send over that gunnery program right away, Ambassador.", and perhaps get Ambrosia's counselors to drop by more often. "But if you do not have any further questions, I will leave you two for now." "Thank you," Ambrosia shakes her head as Gabi trots back to their sleeping quarters in search of the tool kit. "I cannot emphasize enough how OFF the record our discussion has been, concerning my progeny and her origins. Intel knows enough to identify her as my daughter, and that's all that need be spoken. I have survived this long in the political web, and it would be a shame would any hungry spider prey upon my questionable beginnings. More over, Gabi is unaware she has a sister. She only knows Liora as a young woman who happens to share her taste in ice cream and used to work for the Empire, and who was rescued with me and therefore associates on friendly terms. I will tell her more when I see fit. She's enough to cope with at the moment, and I'm not in the right mind to explain the nuances of non consensual, premarital relations." Taking a deep breath to refill /very/ deflated lungs after that long stretch, Ambrosia places a hand on her hip and extends the other across the table to seal the deal. "Are we clear?"